Hello all,I'm setting up my camera and composition in Maya for a still render.I want my camera to emulate the Human Eye's Angle of View.

I know we see 180 degrees with our peripheral vision, but when you plug that into the Angle of View for a standard Perspective Camera it becomes rediculously wide. So it's gotta be closer to 90 degrees.

I tried 90 and it feels pretty good but I'd like to know if anyone knows of a precise value I can use.

Thanks a bunch.
Pete

pgraham

01-24-2006, 04:01 AM

If you want your scene to have realistic perspective, think about how people are going to be viewing the still. Imagine that the screen is a window that your viewer looks through, and estimate how far they'll be away from it. If you don't mind a little trigonometry, you can calculate the FOV based on the width of the window and the distance it is from the viewer. Type into google:

arcsin((width/2)/distance) in degrees

with your measurements, and then multiply the answer by 2. That's the angle that will feel the most real with the setup you measured.

If your viewer gets closer to the screen than you expect, or you use a smaller FOV, or the screen is bigger than you expect, then the perspective will feel longer (like telephoto) than normal. If they're farther, the FOV is greater, or the screen is smaller, the perspective will feel shorter (like wide-angle) than normal.

I think video games use angles around 90, which is a lot wider perspective than the usual monitor viewing setup. If you had a 20-inch wide screen and sat 24 inches away, the viewing angle would be about 50 degrees, not even close to 90.

playmesumch00ns

01-24-2006, 10:05 AM

FOV is measured as HALF the width or height of the viewing frustum, so your logic (and you number) makes perfect sense

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